There are few issues on the American agenda that affect as many people as health care and about which so little is being done. Whether access to care for the uninsured or prescription drugs for the elderly, there is a sense of urgency among the populace and also a sense of futility. The U.S. Health Care System is so vast and complex even the most visionary of our leaders struggle to embrace its full breadth and scope. Health care reform efforts initiated by political leaders and industry professionals rarely look at the health care system as an integral whole.

Healthcare reformers, guided by their own vested interests, focus instead on symptoms such as health care costs, health insurance, managed care, single payer systems, prescription drugs, Medicare and Medicaid. These reformers talk about such health care policy issues as universal health care, the economics of health care and quality of care but they do not drill down to the core of those issues, to the root causes. Guided by their own political agendas and vested interests, reformers offer remedies that stretch the health care system into new shapes and propose regulations that restrict and complicate it. The pervasive power of special interest groups also contributes as meaningful reforms are so diluted they become meaningless.